


Small Victories

by Glittering_Darmallon



Series: The Ballerina and The Bull [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bull has seen some shit, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Introspection, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post necklace of the kadan, References to Past Assault, Stargazing, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 16:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glittering_Darmallon/pseuds/Glittering_Darmallon
Summary: During a quiet moment stargazing with Anaani, Bull does some self-reflection





	Small Victories

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend, Maxxie
> 
>  
> 
> There is a minor mention to some past trauma, but it is not graphic or very long.

There's a stillness to it, this cool nighttime air of the Hissing Wastes. Not much for insect noise, no cicadas, no crickets, a silence that belies the dangers lurking out there among the vast swaths of sand. Sand, that if not for the blanket on which the pair of them lie, would be finding its way down the back of his pants. Bull’s grateful for it, even if the blanket is a bit itchy.

 

A cloud moves past the moon--if anyone had told him before just how large it would look out here, he would have called bullshit. Yet here he is in awe of the size of it--and briefly, the area around them dims. He stretches his arms out flat above his head and rubs one of Anaani's horns, wondering if hers are itching as bad as his are in this dry heat.

 

He thinks back to when he first met her. His boots had soaked through from the rain, and he'd long since needed to change them. Still, Venatori had persisted, and the Chargers had been growing weary. Then out of nowhere, she'd come running in, wearing  that brilliant, cobalt-colored shokrataar, and before he'd even known what was going on, she'd taken over the battle like a whirling dervish of spinning blades, a brisk ballerina of death. There was an elegance to the way she fought. For someone so tall, she'd moved with incredible speed, with grace, a lightness to her steps that had him envious within a minute.

 

He wonders if a small part of him had fallen for her in those first moments and felt content to wait for the rest of him to catch up. With a gentle touch, he scratches the skin at the base of her horns; she nuzzles into the touch. Yet, when cranes his head so that he can see her, she isn't even looking at him.

 

Instead, her gaze is transfixed on the sky, the stars reflected in her eyes, and he can't help but be overwhelmed at the swell of emotions in his chest. He'd lied whenever he said he never thought about love the way Southerners did. He _hadn't_ until he first visited Orlais. Seeing the way couples behaved around each other, made him wonder what it would be like to feel that way about another person, to give someone his body _and_ his mind. On some occasions, he even found himself longing for it, but he'd just dismissed it as an impossibility under the Qun which he'd never had any intention on leaving… Until he left, and even then it wasn't his choice.

 

He studies her, the soft upward slope of her nose so unlike his own. Freckles that, to him, looked like grains of sand blowing on the wind, scattered about her face. At this point in the night, she's let down her hair, and it cascades in platinum waves over her arms that she's folded behind her head to make up for the lack of pillow. It looks soft as silk. He _knows_ that it is, had run his fingers through it more times than he could count.

 

Though he notices it everyday, it's in quiet moments like this that he's struck by her beauty wondering how in the Void someone like him was lucky enough to just be in her presence let alone in her bed. He's looked into a mirror, knows he looks rough, scarred and with missing parts; he's a wreck inside and out. His ankle and knee don't work that well anymore, nose has been broken eight- no nine times. He had seen enough shit in Seheron to lead him to seeking reeducation. He's a mess, but he's trying; he's a mess, but she believes in him.

 

Not for the first time, he wonders what she sees in him, why he drew her eye in the first place. He hopes it wasn't because he was the only other Qunari in Haven, and she settled for him. He looks rough and she looks ethereal in comparison. If not for the scar running down her chin and neck he'd have difficulty believing she was a fighter at all. It's sad though, because he knows that scar as well as the others that lie beneath her armor didn't come from battle.

 

He thinks back to when they first started… _this_ , thinks how mere seconds after he'd explained what being with him truly entailed she'd agreed but only after walking, posture slouched making her look so much smaller than her tall frame, over to her desk and scribbling out a list, thinks how his stomach churned when he read the things she wasn’t comfortable with; he didn't need to know what had happened in order to understand, to infer it likely had everything to do with why humans terrified her.  

 

Now that he knows his suspicions were correct, he'd shake the heavens to keep anyone from hurting her ever again, and that includes him. He walks his fingers across her stomach.

 

“You're doing it again,” Anaani says, her voice like liquid, smooth .

 

“Doing what, kadan?”

 

“Thinking too much… And you're staring.”

 

“Guilty as charged. Want me to stop?”

 

Her soft chuckle fills his chest with warmth. What he wouldn't give to hear her laugh all the time. “Stop you from thinking? Perish the thought. As for the staring… well that depends.”

 

“On?”

 

She turns onto her side, propping her head up with her hand. “Why you're staring,” she says as she pokes him in the nose.

 

He blushes; he knows he does, not that she can tell in the dark. “Your eyes looked beautiful in the moonlight. Guess I forgot to look away. I, uh, do that sometimes.”

 

It's a surprise, in that moment, when she kisses him, her lips pillow soft upon his. He could get drunk on the feel of them. Of course he tells her none of this, never had before, and certainly doesn't now when she reaches to knead the base of his horns, as though she doesn't know what that does to him. It sets the butterflies aflutter in his stomach, turns him boneless. And... that's the problem, he thinks.

 

The fact that without trying and without meaning to, he's given away his heart to something, _someone_ other than the Qun should set every one of his Ben-hassrath instincts on edge.

 

_But you're not Qunari anymore. You are Tal-Vashoth._

 

The ‘and a good man’ never factors into his internal monologue. She'd said it. Without missing a beat, without faltering, she'd told him the exact thing he'd needed to hear as the saar-qamek tried and failed to work it's way through his system, the exact thing that kept him from crumpling in a heap of grief in his room that night, weeping for all he'd lost: the stability, the surety, the knowledge that he was part of the greater whole. Everything he'd known about his life had changed in an instant and instead of grieving its loss, he kept his head high and held onto what still remained. She'd chosen the Chargers, his _family_ that he'd chosen and built for himself. She threw away an alliance with the Qunari for a mercenary band not two dozen strong.

 

 _No_ , a tiny voice in his head says. _She chose you._ That says it all.

 

She chose him, believed in him, in his willingness to do good, to help. She trusts him, and he'll be damned if he's going to do anything to break that trust… _Ever_.

 

He hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her on top him, the need to be closer to having her weight pushing him into the sand more pressing than any other thought in his mind. He's mindful of the fact the rest of the party is not twenty feet away, because if they weren't… Well he'd give himself over completely. These unwelcome thoughts in his head need to be driven out, and letting her do that for him…

 

He sighs, both frustrated and elated, if one could be both at once. Just the fact that he's found someone he can let down his guard around is enough to set his mind reeling. He's found someone to whom he's served up his heart on a gilded platter. She could destroy him at this point, and not only would he let her, he'd say thank you.

 

And that terrifies the shit out of him, scares him worse than any demon ever could. He thinks _that_ is the real reason the Qun doesn't allow for romance. When feelings get in the way of good decisions… Well it's not very good for the whole then is it?

 

It takes him a moment to notice, but she catches his hands, bringing them above his head to pin to the blanket. He lets her, doesn't fight it. Perhaps she needs be in charge right now just as much as he needs her to be. It's unspoken, and he says a silent prayer to every god he can think of that she can read his tells tonight, because he knows he doesn't have it in him right now to ask for it.

 

He turns his head only to find the two guards on duty paying them no mind, and he's pretty sure she knows this. It's probably why she's being so bold not that he minds. If this is what she needs, then-

 

It's a shock when she pulls back, stops the slow circular movement of her hips that he wasn't even aware of until she stopped. “Wha-”

 

She presses a finger to his lips, halting his question. Instead, she brackets his head with her hands, stroking his cheek. “Where'd you go just now?”

 

He wonders how long he was gone this time; it only felt like a few seconds. But that is the reality of it he supposes.

 

“I dunno.” He pauses just to give his mind a second to catch up. “Okay, understatement. I just got lost in my head for a moment. You know how I get sometimes, but I'm good now.”

 

She smiles at him and it rights every thing off-kilter inside him in that moment. He feels at ease for now. That's good. He can appreciate the peace that it brings while it lasts. “Next time you go wandering around in that head of yours, bring me along. Maybe with me in tow, you won't get lost. Things are less scary with a partner.”

 

He wraps his arms around, holds her as tightly as she'll allow. He knows her words are a gesture, an offer to help. He knows love an affection will never stop him from assessing the threat level in every room the moment he walks into it, knows it won't keep him from waking up at every tiny sound in the dark. It won't keep him from ruminating over past mistakes that cost lives, or reliving the mess that was Seheron. It won't fix him, but it will surely help him endure it all.

 

“Thanks, Boss.” As soon as he says it, he regrets it, and it's then that it hits him. In all the months knowing her, he's never once used her name. She's been Boss, Inquisitor, Kadan but never her name. It's a tragedy, he thinks, for it's such an apt name for how being with her feels. “I will, Anaani.”

 

That's what she is to him. A chance to be more than the big brute everyone sees, to be a lover as well as a fighter, to help. She's a breath of fresh air, a redemption. Maybe just maybe having her support will make this terrifying life without the Qun less daunting so that he never falls into that cliché of savage Tal-Vashoth he'd been cautioned about all his life. Perhaps, despite it all, he'll be a success, an _Anaan_...a victory.


End file.
